Suddenly I Am Here Today
by eprime
Summary: Lily on the verge.


**Rating:** NC-17

**Contains:** sexual situations (not terribly explicit), mature language

**Prompt:** song: Yann Tiersan - Summer 78

**Summary:** Lily on the verge.

**Author's Note:** Written for the Lily/James Fest 2011 on LJ. This song is lovely and it made me think of moments of change, and how dual-edged those moments can be, especially when one is young, feeling their freedom and sexuality, and everything is new and fresh, and those adventures are so exciting but sometimes things are left behind and it hurts, but even that is somehow exhilarating because it's life and everyone feels invincible with a thousand paths to follow when they're young. I adore James but this one turned out to be all about Lily. Thanks to ELO for the title.

"Since when do you smoke?"

Severus looked up at her, eyes narrowing against the bright light with which the sun behind limned her then falling to the cigarette loosely held between his fingers. His face twitched into lines of a self-deprecating sneer.

"Since today."

Lily studied him a moment then moved into the dappled patch of grass under what had once been their tree to sit under and to talk about magic and potions and to share mundane secrets and inside jokes. The trunk felt familiar and solid against her back when she settled against the rough bark and wrapped her arms around her bent knees.

"How is it?"

"Vile."

A flick of his wrist brought the butt end within her reach, and Severus' arched eyebrow indicated both cold amusement and challenge at the proffering.

Lily took it. It wasn't her first, of course. She and the girls from her dorm had spent one evening toward the end of fifth year drunk and giggling and going though a pack of fags that Mary MacDonald had smuggled in during the Christmas hols. It had been a little post-Owl stress relief for the other girls, and stress relief of a different sort for Lily. It had left them queasy and reeking and that had been that for her. Funny that Severus was the primary cause of this particular minor deviation from the straight and narrow both times.

She inhaled, then tilted her chin up and blew a steady line of smoke up toward the hanging branches. The stream writhed in the sunlight and she was aware in a vague, detached way of the picture she must make in the moment: pursed lips, arched neck, and eyes lidded against the splotchy sunlight that filtered through the leaves and made her hair glint coppery-gold.

She felt her power, reveled in it just a little bit, to know Severus was watching her. It was the same sort of power that had always kept her chin up with Potter and during other unpleasant encounters, though she hated to admit it. Despite being a muggleborn, despite being a girl-a handicap in either society in which she found herself entwined-despite that she despised herself a little for relishing it, she knew that many wanted her in one way or another, in ways they couldn't help, even those that purported to hold her in contempt. She'd even felt Avery's and Mulicber's eyes upon her more than once, loathsome though it was, and she couldn't help but feel a bit of vindictive pleasure in the fact that even the worst sort of Purebloods weren't completely immune to her charms, such as they were.

She could admit deep down and just to herself that she liked that passive, yet undeniable, innate force that made them give way to her, to see their eyes light up in admiration or desire, or better yet, grudging respect, all their arrogance properly subdued. It wasn't just her looks either. It wasn't just sex and the effect of their unpracticed and unfocused adolescent urges. She had more to offer than that. She knew it, and they could sense it too.

But sometimes just the admiration was enough.

She was young and sought after, and it was exhilarating to feel the thrill of that course through her. Just beneath her skin she felt wild. She could almost feel it rippling that day, the last day, as if she were going to transform into some unimaginable creature.

Bittersweet, she thought. Her heart pumped a mixture of joy and nostalgia, a dash of regret and sorrow, and it made her chest ache so sweetly. When have I ever felt so alive? She wondered. Strange that losing something irretrievable makes this moment so much sharper.

Severus plucked the cigarette from her fingers, breaking her out of her reverie, and stubbed it against a trailing root with a dour look.

"Are you going home?"

Lily played up the longsuffering sigh. "For the summer, yes. Tuney's getting married and I'm to be a bridesmaid, though neither of us is keen on the idea. Mum insisted."

"Someone actually proposed to her?"

Feeling only slightly guilty, Lily shared a smirk with Severus. "He's horrible. Awful manners. No neck at all, mustache like a walrus." Lily's smile faded. "He seems to love her, though."

Severus snorted, and Lily could see from the corner of her eye that his expression had gone cold and disdainful.

"And then? Shacking up with Potter, I suppose." His words were laced with acid, bitter and thick on his tongue.

A shiver ran down Lily's spine: regret and satisfaction. She didn't sugarcoat it.

"Yes." Her chin came up again, subtly defiant.

"I thought so much better of you."

He sounded so truly disgusted that Lily's insides churned unpleasantly. She turned her own scornful look upon him.

"I could say the same."

When he opened his mouth, a scowl drawing his eyebrows together, she interrupted.

"Severus, please, it's our last day here. Can we just forget everything for a bit? Just for now?"

She could see he was torn, frustration and anger and longing vying for dominance. Now the sorrow grew sharper and flashes of memory tugged at her composure: laughter under this tree, walking to the corner shop back home, hiding from her sister, whispers in the library, secrets, arguments and tension and disapproval, and words that could never be taken back properly.

What am I doing, she thought. This is cruel. It hurts. I want to cry. She shivered and didn't know whether it was pain or pleasure.

"Lily," he said haltingly. "I-"

She waited but his words dried up. It did hurt, exquisitely, it made her gasp and throw her arms around him, hugging him for all she was worth.

"Take care of yourself, Sev. I mean it. I'll always care about you."

She was up on her feet before his own arms could move.

"Lily!"

She walked backwards out of the shade, letting only the best memories warm her smile, a last offering to him. Noblesse oblige. Generosity cost nothing when one was overflowing with everything. He said her name again, frustration winning out at last, but she turned and ran across the grass faster and faster and farther until her sides cramped and she sprawled in a deliciously winded heap near the lake's edge.

"Lovely knickers, Evans. However, isn't it a little disingenuous to be wearing white?"

Without opening her eyes, Lily tugged her skirt down her thighs, then crooked two fingers in the general direction of the voice.

"You're a pig, Black," she said sweetly.

He laughed, a raucous bark, making her eyelids twitch and almost flutter open. "But I haven't even mentioned the delightful thrill the rapid heaving of your enticing bosom-what there is of it, I mean-gives me."

"I do hope you're enjoying it because it's the only thrill you'll ever get from me."

"You're such a stony-hearted shrew, Evans. Since you two have been shagging, I've been forced to question James' taste-and sanity for that matter-every day."

"I've questioned his sanity every day for the past seven years. As for his taste, who would you prefer he shag? You?" Lily cracked an eye and smirked up at him.

"Oh, ho! Never heard that one before." Sirius made a show of yawning as he stretched out on the grass next to her.

"Touched a nerve, did I?" Her grin turned somewhat vicious as Sirius rolled his head to look at her with a distinctly cool gaze.

"If that's what I wanted, Evans, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Lily merely snorted. Black was in typical form today. Despite what he said, she knew he really was just jealous that she had claimed so much of James' attention and time, so much of James' himself. She could understand that, though it sometimes laced their playful antagonism with an acidic edge that threatened to really burn at times. It drove James crazy.

For herself, she was rather glad of it because on closer inspection Black really wasn't all that bad. He was far more astute and intensely intelligent than he liked to act most of the time. Even his not so rare moodiness was oddly compelling. Lily could see the potential for temptation, especially when she took in the sharp angles of his cheekbones and dark sweep of his long lashes. Sometimes she thought he could see the same sort of knowledge when he looked at her.

The June sunlight hit the bare flesh of her legs between the tops of her socks and the hem of her skirt. Through her lashes she watched Sirius sweep a look across the length of them, continuing on and away as they heard James and Remus and Peter tumbling toward them, noisy and exuberant. A pile of wrestling, wallowing boys surrounding her, laid out at her knees as she sat up and graced them with a superior smile. "Future of the Wizarding World indeed."

"Stick with us, Evans, and we'll show you wondrous sights you've never even imagined." James grinned and rolled up to tug her onto his lap. She allowed it, settling into the loose circle of his arms and enjoying the way his eyes lit with gratified pleasure that hadn't yet faded into complacency when she granted him such easy familiarities. "Hm. I remember you saying something like that before, Potter, and I don't remember being all that impressed."

The other boys snickered, and James laughed along, squeezing her just that much more tightly.

"I told you she's a vicious cow, James." Sirius tossed a handful of bright green blades of grass into the air. One landed on Lily's pale, freckled knee and she plucked it up, twirling it between her finger and thumb.

Glasses dug into her cheek as James leaned forward, surrounding her senses. "She'd have to be to put up with all of us."

"Speak for yourself," Remus put in, lifting up on his elbows to share a conspiratorial grin with Lily. "I've managed to get along with Evans just fine all these years. Then again, she's always liked me best." His smile turned sly. "Sure you don't want to ditch the four-eyed git over there and run off with me instead?"

Before Lily could speak, James clamped a hand over her mouth. "Oi! Clear off, Lupin! It took me six and a half years to get her to speak to me without threatening to hex me. Quit trying to lure her away with your swotty, proper little Englishman routine."

Lily managed to pry James' hand away. "Remus," she feigned shock, "don't tell me it was all just an act?"

"Too fucking right," Sirius interjected loudly. Peter nodded vigorously as well.

"Vile slander." Remus' eyes went round and innocent, a hand clutched at the fabric of his sweater, just above his heart. "Whose word do trust? That of reprobates, Potter and Black, or that of your fellow prefect, sometime study partner, and sharer of first kiss back in second year?"

The sight of three shocked faces and one wicked grin grafted itself into her permanent memories as she threw back her head and laughed.

Later, in the prefect's compartment, sealed with the best locking magic two of the brightest minds Hogwarts had seen in a long time could cast, James fucked her up against the window. They were usually so frantic; hot and eager and in danger of being caught. But what did that matter anymore?

Her knickers on the floor, skirt pushed up and tucked into her waistband, the scenery, vibrant and beautiful, passed in an endless blurring stream as she pressed her palms to the pane, her breath fogging the cool glass. Slow thrusts inside of her, James' fingers between her legs, wringing soft cries from her lips and wanton little motions from her hips. Another hand on her breast, squeezing and teasing, sharp little moments of small torment to temper the almost cloying pleasure.

"Are you impressed yet?" James breathed against her ear. She could feel the curve of his mouth, but she could only grunt a choked laugh as he pulled her hips back and shoved in deep.

"Who's your lover, Evans?" The low, rough whisper shuddered through her, the colors raced and ran until she finally shut her eyes, bright light diffused to a white-out glow.

My lover, she thought as the sticky wetness painted her thighs and the blood rose up loud in her ears, and: Home. I'm coming. I'm coming home.


End file.
